If you’ve attended a wedding recently in Hong Kong, the chances are pretty high that shark’s fin wasn’t served.

Hong Kongers are eating less and less shark’s fin, and its traditional importance in banquets has declined rapidly in the past five years, according to findings from a new survey conducted by marine conservation group Bloom and the University of Hong Kong.

Shark’s fin is typically served in a broth and was once ubiquitous at Chinese weddings, but controversy over the collection process – which involves cutting off a shark’s fin and leaving it to die – has recently led to a backlash.

The survey found that 44.3% of people in 2014 did not eat shark’s fin in the previous 12 months, compared to 17.5% in 2009. More than 90% of people said it is either “very acceptable” or “acceptable” to not include shark’s fin in a wedding banquet, compared to 78.4% five years ago. The survey is based on the findings of about 1,000 respondents.

Hong Kong handles roughly half of the total global volume of shark’s fin traded each year, with about 120 countries exporting it to the city, according to Bloom. Much of the product, however, is then re-exported to places like Vietnam or mainland China for processing before it is sold to consumers.

“Basically, if a country has a coastline, it trades in shark’s fin with Hong Kong,” said Stan Shea, chief marine program coordinator at Bloom. Spain is the biggest exporter of shark’s fin to the city.

Shark’s fin is basically tasteless, and is prized by Chinese chefs for its stringy texture. Environmentalists decry the delicacy as cruel and blame consumption of shark’s fin for depleting shark populations and distorting marine ecosystems.

The survey’s findings come amid intensifying campaigns both in Hong Kong and mainland China against eating shark’s fin. Basketball star Yao Ming in 2011 began appealing for people to stop consuming shark’s fin, for example. Bloom also said the number of hotels in Hong Kong that are refusing to put shark’s fin on banquet menus doubled to about 16 in 2014 compared to 8 in 2009.

Governments in both Hong Kong and mainland China have also banned shark’s fin from official banquets. A crackdown on lavish spending as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive is helping reduce consumption of shark’s fin on mainland China, according to a 2014 survey conducted by San Francisco-based NGO WildAid, though young Chinese people are also becoming more environmentally-aware.

Official trade data show that in 2003, Hong Kong imported over 12,000 tons of shark’s fin, falling to about 5,400 tons in 2013.

Nelson Cho, a wedding planner in Hong Kong, said that five years ago, more people wanted to have shark’s fin on the banquet menu, but even then it was mostly a decision contingent on the parents’ wishes, as Chinese parents are traditionally very involved in their children’s wedding planning. Now, however, it is increasingly acceptable to replace shark’s fin with another delicacy, bird’s nest, for the soup-based portion of the banquet, he said. Bird’s nest is made from the saliva of male swiftlets, often produced in man-made nesting houses in Southeast Asia.